MISSION UPDATE: Not according to plan

Sometimes you get everything wrong except the thing you most need to get right. And that's my story for you today.

Rainy season had been long. Like looooong long. Everyone was just a little bit spent by the time those final flood waters receded and the houses could be moved back into. The children were once again able to go by vehicle to school rather than by boat. Robbie and I, along with Levi, Quinn, and Zachy had returned from traveling and things could settle into some semblence of normal.

Instead, we decided to stir things up and finish the renovations on the wood house, that's so close to ours it's almost connected, because we wanted to move the girls into it. Earlier in the year we'd moved all the boys out of the dorm and into our house to provide them with a better environment. We quickly saw them melt into life inside a home, as opposed to a dorm, and we knew we wanted the same thing for the girls.

But because we're raising a large group of children who aren't all blood siblings, we needed to be creative in order to make it happen. Even if our house was large enough to fit everyone, we knew we needed to keep the boys and girls sleeping rooms in separate structures. The wood house just needed some upgrades and additions in order to fit the bill.

This is the view of the house from the carport. The porch is big and the house is small so we had to add on a bit.

We got a donation that was specified for the electrical/solar upgrade but since the solar company has us on hold while they work out some snags, I asked my friend (the donor) if we could use it to fix up the house and she said that was fine for which we were so grateful. So fix it up we did!

Not too long later we had a finished house that was move in ready and we had a gaggle of girls who were beyond excited to get moved.

Unfortunately, nothing about that house ended up the way I pictured. Nothing except the porch, that is. The porch is amazing. And the wall right behind where Yim is sitting is our house, so they're seriously right next to each other.

But I imagined the inside being a little haven for the girls with a living room and kitchen and a hang out space for them to play. I envisioned their little dolls lined up so cute-like and all my beautiful, dark-haired girlies sitting criss-cross-applesauce on their freshly varnished floor playing happily.

What actually happened is we started moving the bunk beds and straightaway realized they wouldn't fit out of the rooms they were in. The men we had contracted to build them years back had welded them INSIDE the rooms and they were far too big to fit through the doorways.

So Robbie and the boys got to work cutting the beds in half, separating the top bunk from the bottom. Then they had to be carried to the opposite side of the pond where the houses are, so Robbie could weld a piece into each post to enable us to set them up safely again. And then we carried each bed inside, only to find they just weren't going to fit.

Not the way we'd imagined, anyway.

My hopes of a living room/play space evaporated quickly. We had to concede that the living room would, in fact, be a bedroom. We got the beds moved in and stood back to access the situation.

It looked cluttery.

We did our best and found ways to minimize visual overwhelm and then called it a day. Just in time for nightfall when the girls always start asking if they can come to my house. We've always required them to be walked from the dorm side to the house side when it's dark, which it always is here in the 6pm (give or take) range.

This night was no different. All their high-pitched voices started piping out their requests to go to "mommy's house" but this time they got a brand new response!

"You don't have to ask anymore. Where you sleep now is right beside the house and you're allowed to walk between the two places without asking." They were delighted! The outdoor area is very well lit and they immediately covered the little bit of ground to the house.

And they've repeated it every day since.

Anyone spot one small Awa peeking around a huge beam? :)

Our house is loud and it's very, very active. We have rules and they've done well at obeying them, which surprised us because for so much of the past 5 years that we've lived on this property, we've spent the majority of our time outdoors since the dorm wasn't next to the house. The children have always been well supervised, day and night, but this is just so different. It's so much more like home and I feel like I've gotten to know them in new ways.

We have a basket of legos and a bucket of magnatiles and yarn and arts and craft supplies and couches for resting and visiting. The couches are an upgrade from 5+ years of wooden benches and it's amazing what a cushioned seat does for a tired body and brain at the end of a long day. We're as delighted as the children.

Not much of anything went the way we planned or expected with the wood house. But the most important thing went exactly as it needed to ... these children have the confidence that our home really is their home in a way they hadn't before.

And truly, they don't really want to be in a living room in the wood house anyway. They want to be with us and I can't think of anything nicer.